The objective of the proposed research is to augment knowledge of the chemistry of lignans, which are a fairly well characterized group of organic natural products, and several of which exhibit interesting physiological and pharmacological properties (cytotoxic, insecticidal synergists, piscicidal, antimicrobial, food anti-oxidants). Of principal significance, we wish to develop and exploit novel procedures for the synthesis of arylnaphthalene and aryltetralin lignan classes, by routes which will be applied to specific members but capable of wide applicability.